


Self-Conscious

by tastewithouttalent



Series: Assistance [3]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Awkwardness, Biting, Established Relationship, First Time, Hair Kink, Hand Jobs, Hotel Sex, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1416211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Morel keeps looking at them and Knuckle is terrified that he’s going to /say/ something and Shoot will die of embarrassment before they ever make it beyond kissing." Knuckle is self-conscious and Shoot is brave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-Conscious

Shoot spends the entire trip from the hospital to the hotel room wound tight as piano wire, stretched with stress until he jumps every time Morel says his name, to say nothing at all of Knuckle. In consideration of the other’s panic Knuckle lets him be, only glances at him under the cover of his hair and eyelashes, and tries to keep his eyes fixed out the window instead. It’s hard to watch the surroundings, with his mind skidding overtime over the what-ifs and maybes in his immediate future, but Morel keeps looking at them and Knuckle is terrified that he’s going to  _say_  something and Shoot will die of embarrassment before they ever make it beyond kissing.

He doesn’t, as it turns out, though by the time the taxi reaches the hotel Morel’s looking between his two students with a divot in his forehead that says he’s looking for the answer, even if he doesn’t know what the question is yet. Knuckle gets out of the taxi as quick as he can, stands in the cool air with his back to the vehicle breathing deep and making no move to help either of the other two out. Helping Morel would be asking for more insight than he wants to handle; helping Shoot is even more terrifying for totally different reasons that leave him flushed and breathless even before the other two join him.

“Thanks,” Morel remarks dryly as he limps up over Knuckle’s shoulder, but he refrains from any further comment as Knuckle bows his head to cast his face in shadow. “Let’s get ourselves a pair of rooms.”

Morel gets them a suite, one room for himself and another with two beds for Knuckle and Shoot together, and it should be no big deal. It’s never been a big deal in the past, anyway. But Knuckle can see Shoot’s shoulders draw in protectively as Morel speaks to the receptionist, and he can’t even touch the other man’s wrist to calm him like he once would have, before all their physical contact became supercharged with electricity. He just stands awkwardly distant, feeling all the muscles in his neck knot up in confused panic, and when Morel turns back around his eyes jump from one student to the other while Knuckle meets his gaze in a desperate bid to hide the new history he can feel writ clear in the air between Shoot and himself.

Morel doesn’t speak then, either. Their teacher just resettles his pipe over his shoulder and leads the way down the hall to the elevator. Shoot moves slow, limping after the time in the small space of the taxi, but Knuckle goes even slower, lags so he’s not quite hovering around Shoot but he is conveniently within range to catch his elbow should the other start to fall. He doesn’t, of course, and Knuckle is still trying to decide if that’s a relief or not when the elevator lets them off at their floor and Morel finds the door to his room.

“Here.” He offers the matching keycard to the other two; after a moment Knuckle reaches out to take it. Shoot appears to be frozen in total panic at Knuckle’s elbow; he’s unlikely to move before daybreak without some reason.

“I’m going to bed,” Morel announces, still blessedly refraining from any extraneous comment. “I suggest you two do the same, especially you, Shoot.” Shoot jerks his head in what might be a nod and Morel turns back. “I’ll collect you in the morning and we’ll see about heading home. Get some rest.” Then he’s opening the door, and it shuts behind him, and there’s just Knuckle and Shoot together and  _alone_  in the hallway.

Knuckle’s mouth is very dry. He is staring at the door that has just shut, feeling the weight of expectation like the world lowering onto his shoulders. After a moment he takes a breath and chances a glance at Shoot. But the taller man is staring at Morel’s door too, forehead drawn together into a crease of worry, and it takes all Knuckle has not to snap at him for looking so damn  _miserable_  about sharing a room.

“Here,” he says instead, moving forward towards the lock. Shoot skitters backward so fast he almost falls, like Knuckle is crackling with electricity. He might be, or maybe Shoot’s the electrified one; Knuckle can feel the other man’s eyes on the back of his neck as he fumbles with the lock. Luckily even panic-ridden hands can manage the simple keycard, and when the door opens the room is bigger than he feared. There are two beds, of course, separated by a reasonable few feet, and when Knuckle steps in Shoot follows without having to be dragged. That’s a good sign. Probably.

“Okay,” Knuckle says aloud. His voice sounds oddly loud in the space and higher than usual, cracking back into childhood for a moment. “You want a shower? You can go first, if you want.”

He feels pretty good about this. Reasonable, rational, calm, behaving like an  _adult_  and being  _considerate_  rather than just shoving Shoot down against the closest bed. But there’s a pause a moment too long, and by the time Knuckle has thought to turn to see Shoot’s expression the other is turning away with a mumbled affirmative. He only catches a glimpse of the other man’s face before it disappears behind dark hair and hunched shoulders, but its enough for him to know he fucked up, although he’s not sure  _how_.

He has plenty of time to think about it while Shoot is bathing, time to carefully think about  _only_  that and not the way the other man’s hair would look plastered wet against his shoulders and over his sharp-edged collarbones. By the time Shoot emerges Knuckle is wound even tighter from  _not_  thinking than from thinking and he has no further insight. Shoot’s got his hair wrapped up in one towel and another tucked tight around his waist, and that’s good, that  _helps_ , so Knuckle can jump to his feet and slide past the other man into the bathroom before Shoot has a chance to more than open his mouth to say something. It’s not until the door is shut and locked that Knuckle realizes what that must have looked like to Shoot.

“Oh.” He stops, stares at himself in the mirror. “Oh,  _fuck_.” He even reaches for the bathroom door to go back out and...and that’s the problem. He’s not sure if he should talk, or kiss, or  _what_ , exactly, and for a moment he just wants to be a coward, so he hides behind the locked door and turns the water on as high and as hot as it will go. The heat helps take some of the tension out of his muscles, even with his brain doing its best to counteract the effect, and at least when he gets out he feels clean, if not calm.

There’s only one towel left, so he loops that around his waist, lets his hair drip onto his shoulders, and tries not to feel self-conscious about the amount of skin he’s showing. It’s not like Shoot hasn’t seen him like this before, with less on, in some cases, but then Shoot was just Morel’s other student, just a half-familiar stranger. Now Knuckle knows what his hair feels like and what his mouth tastes like, knows that Shoot’s fingers are longer and thinner than his own and that the other man sometimes scrapes the edge of his fingernails against the back of Knuckle’s neck, and sometimes Knuckle thinks about that when he…

“ _Fuck_.” He has to take another minute, waiting with his hand on the doorknob, until his blood cools enough to hide the evidence of his thoughts; it’s only the knowledge that actually  _seeing_  Shoot isn’t going to help his erection that keeps him in the now-overheated room until he’s as presentable as a man in a towel can be.

Shoot looks up as Knuckle comes out, eyes wide and startled as if he thought he was alone, but Knuckle only spares a moment for the other’s eyes before he’s focused in on Shoot’s hair. It’s down, of course, still damp if not dripping from the shower, and Shoot’s working a comb through the strands, the whole of it looped together and over his shoulder so he can press it against his chest in lieu of using  _Nen_  to call up another hand. He hasn’t put more on than the towel still folded around his waist, either, and he’s sitting with one knee angling sideways so the white material is bunched up dangerously high on his thigh.

Knuckle is suddenly very, very glad he didn’t take longer in the shower and give Shoot a chance to get his clothes on.

The other man has entirely stopped moving, his hand stalled out in the middle of a sweep of the comb and his eyes fixed on Knuckle’s shoulders. His forehead is still creased with nerves but his mouth is open in what looks like surprise rather than fright, and he doesn’t look up to meet the shorter man’s eyes until Knuckle takes a step forward, a large one to compensate for how long it took him to move.

Shoot flinches back but his mouth doesn’t close, and Knuckle calculates that he’s fine as long as the other man isn’t actually turning away. It only takes a few steps to cross the room anyway, and then he’s scrambling up onto the end of the bed and Shoot is dropping the comb so he can draw his hand up in front of himself defensively. His eyes are wide and scared, so scared that Knuckle nearly draws back again, but just as he’s hesitating to reconsider, there’s a flicker of movement and Shoot’s tongue slides quick over his lips. Knuckle’s gaze drops to Shoot’s mouth, and Shoot’s lips part in instinctive anticipation too strong and too quick to cover. Knuckle sighs, more in relief than anything else, and leans over the remaining space between them to fit his mouth against Shoot’s.

Shoot’s lips are thin, usually held in a half-panicked frown or a grimace of concern, sometimes caught between the taller man’s teeth while he chews on them absently. Knuckle has spent months watching that habitual motion without ever really thinking about it. He thinks he might know Shoot’s mouth better than any other part of the taller man. He would expect such a mouth to be hard and sharp, to push away any effort to connect, so maybe he doesn’t know Shoot well after all, because it’s not like that at all. Shoot draws in a sharp shocked inhale, but his mouth opens with the sound and his lips go soft even before he recovers himself enough to press gently back. He knows how to tip his head to fit their mouths together, and his tongue comes past Knuckle’s lips as fast as the other’s into his own, and when he leans in it’s gentle but steady, quietly confident as Knuckle never expected Shoot to be. Shoot’s fingers catch and pull gently at Knuckle’s loose hair, push it back over his shoulders, and the touch is feather-light, it shouldn’t leave such a trail of heat but it  _does_ , it shocks all the way through to Knuckle’s bones and tingles in the wake like a brand. Knuckle whines back in his throat and Shoot flinches away, pulls back sharply, and when the shorter man blinks his eyes into focus Shoot is gazing at him with so much fright in his expression Knuckle nearly laughs just from the absurdity.

“Sorry,” Shoot mumbles, drawing his hand free of Knuckle’s loose hair and pulling his eyes to stare down at the bed. “I didn’t --”

“No.” Knuckle’s not sure what he’s refusing, not specifically; it’s just the whole of Shoot’s assumption, whatever he  _thinks_  needs apologizing for. “I want.” That’s not specific enough either, he really should be more precise, but the words stick in his throat from too many options and Shoot’s eyes jerk back up to his face, still frightened over a bright spark of hope, and Knuckle  _has_  to come back in and kiss him again.

It goes on somewhat longer this time; Knuckle pushes in harder and Shoot’s leaning back already, so by the time they separate again Shoot’s shoulders are pressed into the headboard and Knuckle’s knee has found its way between the taller man’s legs. He carefully holds Shoot’s eyes and tries not to think about how little is between them or much skin he can feel as is and  _definitely_  not about how hard he’s becoming because there is no possible way Shoot can miss that at this range. But Shoot’s  _panting_  against Knuckle’s mouth and Knuckle can feel the shuddering adrenaline trembling under his fingers and through Shoot’s chest, their bodies humming against each other and every point of contact just exacerbating the situation.

“I wasn’t sure you…” Shoot trails off. He looks like he wants to look away -- his eyes keep sliding sideways and down, to the sheets or Knuckle’s knee or just the wet of his hair, but then he glances back and blushes and the process starts all over again.

“No,” Knuckle says again. “I mean, yes. I did. I do.” He laughs without moving away. The tension in his body pulls the sound too high and too forced but Shoot smiles involuntarily in response. “I’m supposed to be the brave one, but I can’t even handle the thought of kissing you without going to pieces.”

Shoot’s eyelashes flutter and his eyes slide away again, but this time they land on Knuckle’s mouth and stay there. Knuckle’s skin flashes cold and then hot, like it’s trying out different responses to find the right one, and he leans in again. Shoot meets him more than halfway, leaning up from the bed and biting, this time, scraping the edge of his teeth against Knuckle’s lip. It flickers almost-hurt over Knuckle’s nerve endings, drags a groan up from his throat, and Shoot’s hand closes on his hip and drags him forward bodily with more strength than Knuckle thought Shoot  _had_. The towel around Knuckle’s waist catches between their legs and pulls loose, and Knuckle  _is_  hard now and pressed in flush against the taller man’s hip, but Shoot is still biting at his lip and his fingers are digging hard against Knuckle’s waist and Knuckle just can’t  _care_  in the moment. His head is spinning with Shoot’s unprecedented aggression, and when he settles his hands up against the other man’s shoulders Shoot lets his lip go to gasp.

“Shoot?” Knuckle manages, the name turning into a request in his throat, and Shoot takes a breath and says, “Yeah,” soft but audible, and Knuckle comes back in as he moves one hand down to brush over the other man’s bare chest. Shoot shivers but doesn’t move away or shift his hand, and he keeps leaning in hard against Knuckle’s mouth while Knuckle carefully feels out the quivering lines of his body. He’s trying to stay relatively innocent, at least as innocent as he can manage with just two towels between his erection and Shoot’s hip, but Shoot shakes like a leaf every time his fingers touch skin, and he keeps sliding down by inches until he hits the top edge of the other man’s temporary covering.

That does stop him. His hand goes still and he pulls back from Shoot’s lips, trying to remember how to speak English so he can attempt to frame a coherent request for what he wants. He’s not watching for  _Nen_  -- although Morel would chew him out for the lapse -- so he doesn’t see the glow surround Shoot before fingers close around his paused wrist.

“Knuckle,” Shoot says, voice tight with strain as the hold pushes Knuckle’s hand just under the edge of the towel’s barrier. “You’re supposed to be the brave one.”

“Do you --” Knuckle starts, trying to phrase a request for permission somewhere in his hazy thoughts, but another hand comes up around the back of his head and pulls his face in so Shoot can cut him off via the pressure of his mouth. For a moment there are fingers in Knuckle’s damp hair and tight around his wrist and Shoot’s lips warm against his; then Shoot draws back a breath, just enough to hiss, “ _Yes_ ,” and both the additional hands evaporate as the taller man lets his  _Nen_  go.

Shoot’s skin under Knuckle’s fingers is illogically warm. He’s been running his hand down along the taller man’s chest, waist, hip, drawing blood and heat up to the surface of skin in the wake of his touch, so the towel can be serving hardly any purpose in retaining heat. Shoot’s hip still  _feels_  warmer, almost painfully hot under Knuckle’s fingertips, and Knuckle takes a sharp breath that pulls his mouth away from the other’s for a moment. Shoot lets that go by without protest, though Knuckle can feel his fingers flexing with barely-controlled nerves on the shorter man’s skin. But he doesn’t pull away and doesn’t speak, even when Knuckle gets his whole hand down to lie flat against Shoot’s hip.

“You’re so skinny,” he says without thinking, feeling out the narrow lines of the other’s leg under his hand. “How do you not get hurt all the time?”

“I’m not really supposed to close with enemies when I’m fighting them,” Shoot points out. He sounds almost normal, except that he’s breathing so hard that he has to pause for breath on every third word. “When I do I  _do_  get hurt. You do too.”

Knuckle would shrug, but his hands are occupied and he doesn’t want to shatter the thrumming stillness between them. “Goes with the territory,” he says instead, and then takes a breath and slides his hand sideways, just by an inch. Shoot goes stiff with nerves under his touch and for a breath, or rather a lack of one, Knuckle hesitates. Then his brain hisses  _you’re supposed to be the brave one_ , and although recent events indicates that this is the opposite of reality, when his thoughts continue  _don’t make Shoot do all the work_  his recently-discovered protectiveness of the other flares up and pushes his fingers the rest of the way to run up against Shoot’s cock.

Shoot shudders, all the tension freezing him in place shattering like glass, and his fingers close hard on Knuckle’s hip as Knuckle takes a breath and pushes with his wrist to knock Shoot’s towel free. He  _wants_  to look down and watch his fingers curling around the other’s length, compare the tanned shade of his hand to Shoot’s moon-pale skin, but Shoot tips his head forward to hide his face against Knuckle’s shoulder and Knuckle can hear the almost-tears of panic under his breathing, so he doesn’t. He  _does_  tip his head in, exhales gently over Shoot’s water-heavy hair, and says, “Tell me if it’s too much, okay?” before he sets his grip and starts to stroke.

Shoot doesn’t make a sound, besides the too-loud catch of his breathing in his throat, but they’re pressed so close together that Knuckle can feel every breath the taller man takes against him and the way he trembles with every movement of Knuckle’s hand. It’s terrifying and thrilling at once, to feel the way the other is shaking apart into pieces under Knuckle’s influence. Knuckle has a moment of concern -- Shoot  _did_  just get out of the hospital, after all, this is probably not approved activity so soon after his recovery -- but when his hand stalls in its motion Shoot  _does_  make a sound, a whining groan of frustration, and Knuckle decides that he’ll bother with worrying about possible repercussions and how they’ll explain the same to Morel  _after_ he gets Shoot off.

Shoot’s hand is gripping tight against Knuckle’s hip, his fingers fitting into the lines of skin and bone and muscle, and Knuckle thinks he might be bruising but that’s okay, it’s not like he’s never been bruised before and for worse reason. After a minute Shoot starts rocking, very slightly, just leaning in against Knuckle’s shoulder with each stroke of the other man’s hand, and Knuckle can hear Shoot take a breath and swallow nervously well before he actually speaks.

“Faster,” and it’s faint, almost lost to the muffling hair currently obscuring his face, but Knuckle picks it up and increases his pace to match. Shoot shudders an exhale, and Knuckle can feel him tense with the expectation of satisfaction a minute away.

It’s an impulse that moves his hand; he’s still got his fingers against Shoot’s shoulder, lost in the tangle of long hair, and the angle is bad but he doesn’t think he’s going to get Shoot to lift his head any more. He lets go of the taller man’s shoulder -- Shoot doesn’t so much as flinch -- and curls his arm around to catch around the curtain of hair in front of the other man’s face and drag it back.

 _That_  warrants a flinch. Shoot cringes away from the light, squeezes his eyes shut and takes a breath, and Knuckle thinks he’s about to tell him to stop.

“I just wanna see your face,” Knuckle says, quick and low before Shoot has time to pull away entirely.

There’s a moment of hesitation, Knuckle’s hand still working over Shoot’s length while he watches indecision cloud the taller man’s face. Then Shoot takes a breath, and opens his eyes to catch Knuckle’s gaze for a moment, and when he smiles all the frightened stress in his forehead bleeds away. Even when he shuts his eyes again it doesn’t return; there’s just the fan of dark lashes against Shoot’s sharp cheekbones, and the damp pant of his breath over Knuckle’s skin, and as the shorter man watches he can see a flush rising in the other’s cheeks.

“Shoot,” he starts, but the fingers pressing into his skin spasm in a silent demand and he goes quiet and focuses on the slide of his hand against hardened flesh.

It doesn’t take long after the tension fades off from Shoot’s expression. Knuckle can gauge it by the speed of the other man’s breath, the way his forehead creases again in concentration this time rather than self-consciousness. He keeps his head tipped down so he can watch Shoot’s expression, keeps his fingers settled gently against the back of the other’s neck, and he can tell when the other is about to come just from the way his mouth drops open even before he whimpers and jerks under Knuckle’s touch. Knuckle sighs a shaky exhale into Shoot’s hair and remembers to blink, twists his head in so he can kiss just over the taller man’s eye. Shoot laughs, very faintly but sincere for that, and Knuckle grins before he lets his hold go and reaches down to wipe his hand clean on the towel conveniently draped around his hips.

“You should smile more,” he observes as Shoot blinks his eyes open and pulls back as his flush of pleasure darkens into a blush proper. “You’ve got a nice smile.” This just makes the other man blush harder, but when he meets Knuckle’s eyes he manages to hold the his gaze without looking away.

“Sit up,” he says instead of responding to the comment.

It takes some maneuvering -- Knuckle’s knee is digging into Shoot’s leg and his weight is all sideways and pressed into the other’s chest -- but he manages to get himself up over his own knees instead of draped over the other man quickly, if not particularly gracefully. Of course, as soon as he leans up his towel starts to fall off, and even a desperate grab doesn’t much recover the situation. Knuckle blushes darker even than Shoot, absurdly so given what he was just doing, but Shoot just smiles that weirdly human smile again and sits up so they’re pressed together again. Once he’s upright Shoot lets go of Knuckle’s hip, reaches out to tug the towel free of the other’s hold so he can push it down to gather in folds between them. Knuckle can’t stop flushing -- he can feel the heat washing in waves over his skin -- but Shoot barely looks at his face, just leans in to kiss his shoulder so Knuckle doesn’t have an audience when the other man’s fingers wrap around him.

The lack of sight doesn’t temper the  _sound_  he makes, though, which is a groan that he tries to cut off halfway through and then turns into a choking cough in his throat. Shoot goes still and Knuckle has to bring his hands up to catch the other man’s shoulder and the back of his head, stroking comfort over Shoot’s skin until he can speak clearly enough to say, “It feels good, you’re good, keep going.”

Shoot doesn’t wait to be told twice. He rocks forward, adjusting his balance and incidentally leaning harder into Knuckle’s chest, and keeps his head down while his long fingers slide over Knuckle’s cock in a pattern thrilling with novelty.

“Do you ever use  _Nen_?” Knuckle blurts, mental filters breaking down under the careful movement of Shoot’s hand as quick as his composure. He can feel the pause in the body under his hand, in the tension that catches in Shoot’s back without causing any pause in the motion over Knuckle’s length.

“On myself, sometimes,” Shoot finally says. The words are muffled, again, by Knuckle’s shoulder, but they’re close enough to be understandable anyway. Shoot takes a breath, and the next words are so quiet Knuckle has to hear the whole sentence before he can understand it. “But I wanted to touch you myself.”

“Oh.” Knuckle has to swallow at that, then has to take another minute to lock the sound of Shoot’s voice whispering those words into his memory. “You’re...doing a great job.”

Shoot laughs breathily into Knuckle shoulder and his grip tightens, just a little. Knuckle takes a quick inhale and echoes the taller man’s laugh before shutting his eyes -- it’s not like he’s really seeing anything anyway -- and letting all his senses focus on the friction of Shoot’s fingers against him. He doesn’t realize how loud his breathing is going, doesn’t realize that his inhales are drawing in time with the other’s movement, until he tries to say “Shoot,” and it sounds like a moan. Shoot whines again without lifting his head, just a hard exhale into Knuckle’s shoulder, and when he shifts his teeth catch to bite against the other man’s skin. Knuckle’s fingers go tight on Shoot’s shoulder and he takes one deep, desperate inhale -- then he’s coming over Shoot’s hand, groaning something that is a name in his head but just louder than he expected in reality.

Shoot lets him go while his skin is still tingling with waves of pleasure, while he’s still trying to collect his thoughts, and after a minute of hesitation he imitates Knuckle and reaches for the towel crumpled between their hips to wipe his hand clean. Knuckle laughs, too satisfied to find the energy to be self-conscious.

“You need another shower?”

Shoot looks up, his face still wide-open with the lack of his accustomed tension, and when he laughs it sparkles up into his dark eyes and crinkles in the corners of his eyelashes.

“I might.”

“C’mon.” Knuckle disentangles himself and crawls off the bed so he can turn back and offer a hand to the taller man. “Lemme help you. You’re still recovering. Don’t want you to slip and hurt yourself.”

Shoot tips his head down but he’s still smiling, and after a moment he reaches out to curl his fingers around Knuckle’s and lets himself be pulled to his feet.


End file.
